


teeth

by OnyxSphynx



Series: newmann one-shots [60]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, M/M, Mental Instability, Newt is a bit fucked up y'all, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Recovery, but i reiterate: recovery fic, it was a decade, kind of, or at least something approximating a recovery fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 09:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18775882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx
Summary: This time, Hermann’s standing when they get to the waiting-roomesque area. His hair is a bit longer, almost enough to be considered bangs, and bruise-like shadowing beneath his eyes—Doesn’t worry Newt.It should.Post-Uprising; how the PPDC deals withNewtand how Newt deals with no longer being under the control of an alien hive-mind.





	teeth

**Author's Note:**

> [sarah1281](https://sarah-1281.tumblr.com/) said: "Newt doesn't actually look at all distressed in the movie except when he's facing Hermann and Hermann sees what he's become and Hermann's in imminent danger. And then worried when he thinks he might get smashed by the kaiju. What if...he's actually not upset and is brainwashed enough to actually not even be upset and is perfectly happy with how things are going? And then maybe has to deal with that later?"
> 
> and
> 
> anon said: "If he wanted Newt that badly, he’d be on a plane to Shanghai.“

It starts with an experiment; the recorder in his hand, voice hushed; face illuminated by the yellow-green glow of the fluid in the tank. The phantom feel of seizing on the floor, of bleeding, once, then again is still fresh on his mind but he has to  _know_.

Newt is a scientist, after  _all_ ; this is what he was born for. The scent of electricity and formaldehyde, tinged with an edge of sweat and fear—all these are like an old friend to him, and he welcomes them, plunges deeper and deeper, driven by a borderline-manic need to  _know_.

He presses the button, makes a few adjustments to the pons headset. “Kaiju-human Drift, take—three,” he says, high and nearly breathless. “Just me this time—I’ve done some fine-tuning to the interface so I don’t fry my brain or…or end up like the first time.”

He pulls in a breath—imagines, for a moment, what will happen if someone barges into his room  _now_ , sees him poised on the brink of Drifting with a kaiju brain. They’ll send him to medical, at the least, seize ~~his~~  the brain and destroy it, probably.

The thought makes him growl—low, almost inaudible, and he blinks, surprised at his own reaction. Shrugs it off—must be sleep deprivation.

Clears his throat, adjusts the pons one last time. “Initiating neural handshake in…three…two…one—”

The Drift—

—is  _large_ , is the first thought that hits him, once he can form thoughts again. It’s big—big in the inconceivable way that the concept of  _eternity_ is big to the human mind; he simply has no frame of reference—doubts, for that matter, that  _any_ human has an adequate one.

He rushes through memories, syrup-slow—both his own and that of the hive-mind’s, watches as the kaiju masters evolve from a peaceful society a few billion years back—Earth time, anyway, because he gets the distinct impression that time…doesn’t— _didn’t_ function the same over in the Anteverse—before a—

—”Schism.”

He pulls off the headset, picks up the recorder from up off of the ground from where it fell from his limp fingers, and swallows. “Schism,” he says again, more clearly, “or—I think it was. Like a…civil war? and the group that came out on top were” the—the—the—oh, damn it, what’s the word? They were the more violent—more bloodthirsty—ugh,  _warlike_ , that’s the word—ones.”

He opens his mouth, unsure of when he stopped talking, about to continue, because it’s  _fascinating_ —

—and realises he can’t  _remember_ any more.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses emphatically. He can’t exactly go for another round right now, not with how fragile his neural state probably is, but he  _has_ to know  _more_.

He clicks the recorder off and drags in a deep breath, pulls off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Tomorrow,” he promises himself, “just one last time. For  _science_.”

* * *

The next Drift isn’t  _tomorrow_ because he has to run some tests for another Science Thing™, but time’s an illusion, so whatever, who even  _cares_.

It is, however,  _electrifying_.

He gets back to his own room, tired beyond measure, practically falls face-first onto the floor on the way in, and blinks awake when he sees the headset on his desk.

 _It’s a monumentally stupid idea_ , says the voice in his head that sounds startlingly like Hermann.

“Shut it,” he mumbles, and hooks the headset up, drags the brain closer to the bed so that he can lay back as he Drifts.

 _Newton_ , warns pseudo-Hermann, but Newt’s already pushed the button in that fraction of a second, his vision blurring into electric white-blue.

He gasps—it feels like someone just gave him a shot of caffeine straight to the brain. It feels  _good_.

There’s a niggling sense of  _doubt_ , of  _this feels wrong_ , but he pushes it aside and sinks into the Drift.

* * *

“Newton?” Hermann’s voice startles him, and he blinks. Is that… _worry_ edging his tone? “Perhaps you should sleep,” Hermann suggests. His eyes are wide, and his hand is hovering over Newt’s arm, almost touching, but—not  _quite_.

For a second, Newt wants to gouge his eyes out. It passes just as quickly as it came, though, and he frowns. “Nah, I’m fine.”

The other presses his lips into a thin line. “Newton, you haven’t slept in three days. I worry—”

“ _Don’t._ I’m  _fine_ ,” Newt snaps, louder than he intends to, hard and sharp, and Hermann takes a step back, face shuttering.

“Alright,” he says, and turns, walking out, leaves Newt  _alone_ in the lab.

* * *

Drifts  _six_ and  _five_ are consecutive. He’s hit a rough spot in an experiment, and nothing seems to be working no matter what he does, makes him want to scream and pull his hair out.

He can practically feel Hermann’s worried gaze. “You need  _rest_. You look  _awful_ ,” says the physicist, perched atop his ladder.

“Wow,  _thanks_ ,” Newt snipes back. “As if you look any better.”

When he turns to look, though, Hermann’s facing Newt, chalk not scratching on the board but hanging limply from the arm at his side. Newt lets out a wordless groan and pulls off his glasses, revels, for a moment, in the burning sensation that ensues. “Can’t,” he replies, “there’s work to be done and—”

“ _Newton_.” The way Hermann says it brings him to pause—was exasperation always tinged with fondness?

Hermann clambers down the ladder, strides over to his side. “Newton,” he says again, soft, puts a hand on Newt’s shoulder. “Please take a break. I say this as your… _friend_ , Newton. You’re running yourself ragged—there’s no need to, not now. The world isn’t ending anymore.”

“…alright,” Newt says, slowly, after a moment of silence, and the tension in Hermann’s shoulders loosens, his hand on Newt’s arm now, and gives a brief squeeze. Smiles.

“Take care of yourself,” he says. For a second, it looks like he wants to say more, but he stops.

Newt offers a weak thing of a smile in return—more of a tug at his lips—and rises, brushes past Hermann.

Somehow, between dragging himself out of his clothes and into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth and crawling into bed, he hooks himself up again, mind too tired to voice a protest as the pons, not quite situated properly, digs into his skin.

For a second, everything bursts into white-hot, electrifying colour, intoxicating, and he drags in a ragged breath—

—and blinks as he falls back to reality, vaguely nauseous and wholly disappointed, and before he can even think, he presses the button again.

This time, the rush is instantaneous, and he floats through memories of the hive-mind, his own finally slowed enough that he can concentrate and appreciate what he’s  _seeing_.

The next morning, he’s in the lab earlier than Hermann, earbuds jammed in and singing silently along to the lyrics.

He doesn’t even notice Hermann’s come in until a piece of chalk hits his head, and he whirls around, scowling.

 _Take out your earbuds_ , Hermann mouths, miming the motion.

“No can do,” Newt retorts, “it’s my victory music. I just had a breakthrough, Herms, finally! You can’t make me turn off my  _victory music_.”

Hermann sighs, soundless, and turns back to his equations, but Newt catches the faint smile that tugs at his lips before he turns his back.

* * *

After that, he Drifts whenever he hits a seemingly insurmountable problem. The Drift slows down his brain enough that he can think, can focus on one thought at a time and follow it through instead off bouncing from one to another rapid-fire, never able to stick with a single thought except obsessively.

 _Is this what a normal brain feels like?_ He wonders, spread-eagle on the floor, thoughts pleasantly slow and steady. It’s…  _nice_.

And then, half a year later—

* * *

“What happened half a year later?” asks his psychiatrist, sat across from him in a comfortable-looking chair, no longer jotting down notes on the legal pad.

“Drift fourteen,” Newt replies tonelessly. He’s not even fidgeting anymore—not that he could much before, given he’s restrained at the ankles and wrists.

She seems to sense the change almost instantaneously. “What happened?”

Newt runs his tongue over too-sharp teeth, for a moment contemplating how best to answer, and finally says, simply, “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t speak for the rest of the session.

* * *

Hermann’s waiting for him in the hallway when he gets out; it takes them six months to allow him to move around of his volition; a further nine to tentatively—and under armed guard—allow him to leave the cell.

Two years total. Or at least, that’s what they tell him—Newt-that-was never had much of an internal clock, and Newt-that-is can barely remember he’s human at times, so all he knows, it could have been two days or two decades.

They’ve at least had the decency to give him socks—white, almost blinding, the same as the straight-jacket, but the cold of the concrete still seeps through them.

He doesn’t shiver. Anyone else would—he thinks Newt-that-was would too, complain about it, voice high and scratchy but.

He doesn’t.

“Doctor Gottlieb,” says one of the guards, even tone betraying nothing. The magazine Hermann’s holding lowers, and Newt sees—truly  _sees_ —his face for the first time in over a decade.

 _He’s still got that stupid haircut,_ is his first thought, and it should probably be fond, but it feels more like a statement of fact than anything else. Quickly following is a wave of resentment—his, or lingering from the Precursors, he doesn’t know.

Does it even matter, though, whose it is? He’s still the one who’s thinking it.

Hermann takes his cane from where it’s propped against the wall and rises. His steps are sure and steady, only faltering once he’s within arm’s reach of Newt.

Newt stares at him, even though Hermann’s reluctant to meet his gaze. “Newton,” he says, quiet. Newt lets the sound roll around inside his mind.

“Hermann,” he returns plainly.

“Walk with me?” It’s phrased as a question, but it’s not, and Newt turns awkwardly to follow after Hermann, who’s brushed past the guards and begun walking down the hall. The guards move to follow, but Hermann snaps, “ _Leave_ us.”

“But Dr. Gottlieb, he’s a—”

“Threat?” Hermann exhales sharply; he’s not facing them, but his shoulders are tense, enough to be noticeable. “He’s trussed up like a bloody  _chicken_ and severely malnourished—I doubt there’s much he could do to me. Your lot have seen to  _that_.”

One of the guards lets out a discomfited noise, obviously unhappy at Hermann’s words. Newt doesn’t move; waits to see what will happen.

“…alright,” says the other guard grudgingly. “Geiszler, if anything happens…” she trails off. Newt smiles—an involuntary action, not reaching his eyes, and watches dispassionately as the guards, eyes lowered, slink away.

“Newt _on_ ,” Hermann calls, impatient, “hurry, we haven’t got all day.”

That, Newt can do. Orders are easy—straight and to the point, don’t have the messy edges like emotions do. Newt falls in step.

There’s silence for a moment, and then Hermann says, eyes still fixed on a middle-distance, “How are you?”

“I…” Newt pauses. “Alive,” he settles on. “ _I’m_ …alive.”

“Good,” Hermann says. “That’s good.”

“Is it  _though?_ ” The words tumble out without thought for the first time in a considerable while.

Hermann stops and turns to face him. The expression on his face is similar to anger, Newt thinks, but not. Not  _quite_. “Of  _course_ it is,” he says, and Newt might be imagining it, but he sounds a bit hoarse.

It gives Newt pause, and he runs the words through his head.  _Odd_ , he realises, the words feel  _odd_. It’s been so long since he’s actually [been able  _to_ ] pause and consider emotions—his or anyone else’s.

Oh, sure,  _fear_. But even that becomes muted when you feel it 24/7 for a decade. Anger, perhaps, but he’s not sure what the Precursors were…  _feeling_ was anger, exactly. More of an all-consuming need to crush the inferior species that had destroyed most of their planet—most of their species.

To them, emotions are weak—a means to manipulate. He’s not quite sure how to feel about that, in the end, so he just says, “That’s…nice  _of_ you to  _say_ , even if you’re the only one to think that  _way_.”

Hermann frowns at him. They’re standing in the middle of the hallway—Hermann, leaning heavily on his cane, the lines on his forehead and on his brow more prominent than Newt remembers, turned just enough that he’s almost facing Newt, the straight-jacket suddenly tighter than he remembers it being.

Almost.  _Almost_ , he thinks,  _but not quite_.

“ _How_ are you?” Newt asks, a desperate attempt to cut off a further line of questioning. “How’s  _the_ —” he flounders, still unused to the need to choose his own words, say them without interference. “—job?” he tries. “Girlfriend? Life?”

It does the trick—Hermann’s gaze finally snaps up to meet his and—is that  _defiance?_ —says, cooly, evenly, “Life…is.”

Newt-that-was, he realises, would press for more—pester and wheedle until Hermann either tells him or stalks off in a huff, but.

He doesn’t  _care_ , really, and  _that—_

That  _should_ frighten him. Instead, he just registers  _disinterest_. Disembodiment, too, to a certain degree, like an out-of-body experience—knows how he  _should_ feel, how  _he_ should act, but—

Can’t.

Silent for too long, apparently—Hermann’s gaze drops, whatever scant openness there was disappearing in an instant. Newt mourns the loss.

Almost.

“We should get back,” he says, tilting his head side to side and relishing at the firecracker-like  _crack_ s that result. The sound makes Hermann flinch—barely there unless one is looking for it, which.

Is he?

Still, though, Hermann nods. “Quite right.”

The walk back is slow, silent. Newt suspects that the silence might be awkward for the physicist, but, as much as he  _should_ care—to try and remedy it, even—he doesn’t.

The guards eye him warily when they get back, raking Hermann’s figure—checking, most likely, for signs of harm.

New ones, anyway.

He imagines, for a moment, faded imprints that peak out from beneath Hermann’s collar. The thought brings up a roiling mass of  _something_ in Newt—something that isn’t fear or guilt or grief as he wishes it were—knows it should be.

The something tastes—uncomfortably comfortably—like fascination; like the heady scent of power.

Before they take him back to his cell, Hermann presses a hand to his cheek—ignores the guards’ protests. “Stay safe,” he says.

Newt isn’t sure how to reply. Crack a pithy remark, perhaps, examine that puzzling spark in Hermann’s eyes as he says it—but regardless, the choice is taken away from him as he’s hustled off to his cell.

* * *

This time, Hermann’s standing when they get to the waiting-roomesque area. His hair is a bit longer, almost enough to be considered bangs, and bruise-like shadowing beneath his eyes—

Doesn’t worry Newt.

It should.

This time, the guards don’t protest as Hermann dismisses them—a quick jerk of his head and they’re gone.

“They  _gave_ me thicker socks  _this_ time,” Newt says conversationally, part of him wanting to shift from foot to foot, but he remains still.

Hermann tips his head. “That’s good,” he says, “last time I saw you, you looked a bit cold.

There’s a pause—an opening, an expectation that he’ll add more, but Newt says nothing. Hermann shifts, clears his throat. “They tell me you’re doing better.” Hermann’s speaking softly, and that—

“ _I_ don’t know,” Newt says, and his voice cracks. “I  _don’t_ —I don’t  _know_ , Hermann, I—” he’s breathing rapidly, now, breath whistling.

Hermann’s eyes widen. “Newton—Newton—!” He sounds—panicked, Newt thinks, and—

There’s a hand gripping his shoulder, grounding—Hermann’s, he realises; could cry at that.

 _Is_ crying.

And that is—it’s  _relieving_. Relieving that he  _can_ even cry, can  _react_. That there’s enough of him that’s still  _human_ to cry.

He leans into Hermann’s touch, tears streaking down his cheeks, unseeing as he stares ahead, and Hermann draws him into an embrace—one-armed, but his fingers dig into the fabric of the straight-jacket.

When he drags in a breath—slow and hitching slightly before it evens out, Hermann says, barely audible, “It’s alright, Newton. It’s going to be alright.”

“That’s  _a_ lie,” Newt whispers, face pressing into the crook of his neck, the salty tang of blood on his tongue—he’s biting his cheek, he notes faintly, teeth digging into the soft flesh.

He breathes out, more even. “Thank you.”

Hermann murmurs something too quiet to hear, rubbing comforting circles on his back.

* * *

Some sessions, Newt barely speaks at all; lets the silence stretch whilst Dr. Hawke asks him questions. Answers with a barely-there nod or shake of his head.

Other times, he talks. A lot. Stares at the unadorned walls as he speaks, words spilling out, and he wonders how long it’s been.

At least they’ve given him a decent chair, now—one that he can sit in without his feet touching the floor, hands in his lap.

Cuffed.

Usually, it’s a mix of the two extremes—sometimes listing one way or the other, but not a lot.

Not enough. Almost, but.

Not quite.

The skitter of the ballpoint on paper is still gratingly loud, though. “I don’t know who I am  _anymore_ ,” he says in an attempt to black it out. It’s the truth, though, or as true as he knows.

She catches his gaze for a fleeting second, reading glasses low on the bridge of her nose. “Do you know who you’re  _not?_ ” she counters, and he thinks on it for a moment. Nods. “Let’s start there, then,” she suggests. “Who are you not?”

“A  _nice_ person,” he starts, because it’s the easiest. She gives him a Look. “…the same as I was,” he says, eventually.

The unsaid  _And that is…?_ hangs there, and he resists the urge to bat it away. “Optimistic,” is the first, and following it, “adjusted. Well-connected  _with_ …my own emotions.”

“Can you elaborate on that?” she asks—not gently, because that never works to do anything than make him feel pitied, but. Not unkindly.

“I  _know_ who I was,  _and_ …” he pauses, tries to find the words. “It…the Precursors fucked me up pretty bad, to the point where I don’t even register a lot of the stuff they did— _that_ I  _did_ —as…horrifying, because at this point, I’m just so…desensitised. And…  _I_ hate that. I hate that  _I_ don’t feel anything—I hate myself for that.”

It leaves him feeling ragged, having said it out loud. Like an open wound.

“I’m not going to tell you that’s normal,” she says frankly. The skitter of ballpoint on paper has finally stopped, but Newt’s paying more attention to what she’s saying. “You have a great deal of trauma, and it’ll take you years—maybe even the rest of your lifetime—to figure it out. But the fact that you recognise that—that you’re aware that it’s abnormal and that you  _want_ to feel something other than uncaringness when it comes to the horrible things you were forced to do is a sign that you’re getting better.”

He offers a weak smile—doesn’t feel  _better_ , exactly, but maybe…more at peace. Just a little bit.

“You’re human, Newt,” Dr. Hawke says, “never forget that.”

* * *

The first time Hermann offers, Newt seriously considers the idea that one or both of them are on drugs.

“Come live with me,” Hermann offers. “We can get a flat and do a lecture tour.”

It’s a few months after Operation: Pitfall and their joint Drift; a few days after Newt’s third. The sunset is a bloody red-orange as it dips below the horizon, casting shadows with the half-picked-clean corpse of Otachi, and a bit further, Baby Otachi.

Newt stares at him; blinks. The idea of Hermann discovering the brain runs through his mind, brings up the taste of bile. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Oh,” says Hermann, stares off at the traffic in the road below.

“We’d kill each other,” Newt scoffs, and scoots up closer to the edge, dangles his legs over the side of the roof.

Hermann drops the subject.

The second time he asks, they’re standing in the damn waiting-room-slash-hallway area, and Newt’s still handcuffed, though they’ve afforded him the luxury of shoes.

“I guess I’ll have to figure out a place to stay,” Newt says, to try and fill the silence. “I’m not sure what happened with my bank account, or what they told the public…”

“You could stay with me,” Hermann offers. “When—when you get out. If you want. Or—or I can arrange some other accommodation, if you’d prefer. I could probably call in some favours and find you a place closer to the luxury you’ve grown accustomed to—”

“Well, unless you consider bare walls and straight-jackets luxuries, I think I’ll pass,” Newt says, drily, the edge of humour surprising the both of them. “No, I—” he sighs. “I don’t really care, honestly; they’re going to get someone to monitor me anyway, and—whatever.”

Hermann peers at him searchingly. “Newton, do you truly believe that?” he asks softly. “That you will be under constant observance?”

Newt blinks at him, slow, runs his tongue over his teeth—habit, he thinks, formed during a decade where the Precursors thought that flashing a hint of too-sharp incisors would disturb those who saw it. They weren’t wrong. “Why  _wouldn’t_ they?” he asks at length, “ _what_ assurance  _do_ they have that proves  _without_ a doubt that I wouldn’t try something like that again?”

The other scowls at him. “What evidence do they have that you  _will?_ ” he counters. “No—they’ve kept you locked up and under guard for almost three years. For the past six months, your brain scans have been showing that you’re back to human baseline. They have no reasonable excuse to keep you for  _any_ longer, Newton.”

“I…” there’s a lump in his throat, and he swallows heavily. Says, voice thick, “I…I want to go to a park, Hermann. I don’t care where I wind up living, I just—I want to be able to go for a walk. I haven’t—”  _Haven’t taken a walk in so long_ , he means to say,  _a walk that I actually had any control over_ , but the words stick, refusing to pass his lips.

Hermann’s smile is relieved, if small. “Alright,” he says, “that—yes, I can arrange that.”

“Okay.” Newt lets out a breath. “Okay.”

* * *

_I haven’t seen you in years_ , reads the text on his screen; the bright neon lights on the buildings shine through the floor to ceiling windows of his penthouse, tint the phone screen green-purple-blue. He gives it one last cursory glance before returning to his work.

Shao’s got him working on the designing of the interface for her drone Jaegers. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t what he was  _hired_ for, but that hardly matters—anyone will do practically anything if you throw enough money at them, and the Precursors are no exception.

He wants to reply, at least for a moment, before the impulse is overtaken by the buzzing _irritation_ at the message that pops up on his laptop. It’s the progress-report for his experiment—kaiju-cloning, strictly hush-hush. He’s still having issues keeping the cells stable—probably something to do with the fact that kaiju are silicon-based organisms, but that doesn’t temper the brittle edge of anger.

“ _Human error,_ ” he hisses, “god,  _fuck_ humans, really. They suck.”

That’s true—humans  _do_ suck. “Look at what  _they’re doing_ to the  _environment_ ,” he huffs, “really, we’ll be doing the rest of the world a  _favour_ by killing off the humans.”

He sighs. It would be nice not to have to do it in perfectly-fitted suits and douchey-looking red sunglasses, but whatever.

Well, he’s going to have to call up the cleaners tomorrow; the carpet’ll probably get pretty bloody in a bit.

His phone buzzes again. Hermann.

 _I miss you_.

He scoffs. If he wanted Newt that badly, he’d be on a plane to Shanghai. 

* * *

The first day out of the cell, Newt spends most of hiding in the apartment Hermann’s procured for him, the lights dim, blinds half-drawn, wearing sunglasses. The sunlight is too much without them, even if wearing them brings up the memories of sitting in front of a computer screen, eyes burning as he writes line after line of code to program the drones to open up another Breach.

The second day, Hermann stops by. He brings Newt’s old glasses with him—the clunky black frames slightly bent, the tips grey-white from where Newt would stick them in his mouth and chew on the ends, deep in thought.

Newt squints at him from under the thick blanket he’s hiding under, not yet ready to try and face…anything, really, perfectly content to lay beneath the comforting warmth. “Did you really bring me a pair of glasses that is at least two times weaker than my current prescription?” he asks flatly. “And the ends are chewed up.”

“Yes, well,” says Hermann, “I figured I should do something with them, given that they’ve been sitting on my desk for the last four or so years, and I don’t particularly want to throw them out, given that they’re yours.”

 _Oh_ , Newt thinks, and. “Um.”

The silence lingers between them, and then Newt says, “Uh. I think I have something in the fridge if you want to make a sandwich or something.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Hermann replies, “unless you want to eat something.”

“No thanks,” Newt says, “I’m pretty good where I am.”

* * *

“ _Fuck_ ,” Newt says, “I tried to  _end the human race_.”

It’s a Thursday, and he’s brought himself to put on a new change of clothes and eaten something within the last twelve hours when it finally hits him, in true. Makes him stumble, dragging in air like he’s suffocating, and—it  _feels_ like it.

 _Hermann_ , he thinks, through the haze,  _I need Hermann_.

With monumental effort, he digs through his pockets and fumbles with his phone, unlocking it, and navigates to the contacts.

The phone rings twice before he picks up. “Newton?” Newt doesn’t answer, tries to breathe through the panic.

“Newton!” He sounds—alarmed, that’s the word. “Newton, are you—are you alright? Can you—can you breathe with me?” Newt nods, shaky, even though Hermann can’t see it; Hermann apparently anticipated it, though. “Alright,” he says, edged just the slightest bit with fear, “alright. Breathe with me, Newton.”

_In, out. Deep breathes._

Time passes—Newt’s breathing finally, finally evens out, no longer gasping and frantic. He closes his eyes. “Newton?” Hermann asks softly, “Newton, are you still there?”

“Y—yeah,” he replies, scratchy, cracks at the start of the word, and begins again. “Yeah, I’m—I’m here.”

Hermann sighs deeply—relief. “Would you like me to come over?”

“It’s— _late_ ,” Newt protests, instead of his instinctual,  _God, yes, please._

There’s a second of silence, and then the rustle of fabric on fabric. “I’ll be over in a bit,” Hermann promises. “Just—” there’s another silence, and when Hermann speaks again, he sounds  _afraid_ , almost. “Keep safe.  _Please_.”

The line goes dead before Newt can answer, and he sits there on the floor, phone pressed to the ear, knees pulled up to his chest, and squeezes his eyes shut, counts to one hundred and then back to zero.

When Hermann gets there, Newt’s half out of it, still, silently murmuring numbers, and Hermann looks—

 _Frightened_. His hand’s on Newt’s shoulder, and he’s leaning over, and why does this feel _familiar—_

Oh. “‘m  _not_ dying,” he says, blearily, “Hermann, I—I’m alright, it’s okay. I’m not—look, I’m not bleeding, see?”

It takes a moment for the panic to fade from Hermann’s eyes, and when it does, he drags Newt up and into an embrace, a broken little noise muffled in the fabric of Newt’s shirt. For a moment, Newt thinks  _This is bizarre,_ but then, normalcy is relative, he thinks.

Hermann pulls back, hands smoothing over the wrinkles and pulling the shirt down where it’s been rucked up, gaze searching. “What happened?”

“I—” Newt’s breath catches, gaze flicking away from Hermann’s, and he swallows. “I killed people, Hermann—”

“That was  _not_ you,” Hermann snaps, “that was the  _Precursors_ —”

“No, you don’t  _understand_ ,” Newt says, voice trembling. “That wasn’t—it wasn’t just the drones, Hermann. There were others—people who they saw as loose ends. Flaws in the plan. People who might have said something about what I was doing—how do you think I learned to shoot, Hermann?”

Silence; Newt doesn’t dare look, turns away, hot tears streaming down his cheeks, waits.

Expects something other than for Hermann to move so he can look him in the eye, press a hand to his cheek. His lip is quivering, Newt notes, eyes tearbright, and Newt starts, “I—”

“I’m so, so sorry that happened to you,” Hermann says, hand cold on Newt’s cheek, and Newt shivers, leans into the touch.

“I—I don’t know,” Newt says, “I don’t—I don’t know how to…how to deal with it, Hermann, I—”

He closes his eyes and drags in a breath and leans back against the wall. Hermann draws his hand back, but he shifts closer. “You don’t have to,” he says quietly. “No one can reasonably expect you to, Newton. You’re only human—”

“Am I though?” The bitterness doesn’t come through, really, exhausted as he suddenly is. “You’ve seen the blood labs, the teeth. Can I even be defined as  _human_ at this point?”

“ _Fuck you,_ Newton Geiszler,” Hermann hisses, and Newt opens his mouth to bite back a scathing retort, but Hermann plows on. “You—you  _are_ human.  _Painfully_ so. I’m not willing to sit here and listen to you  _doubt_ one of the most  _intrinsic_ things about yourself.”

The words leave Newt winded. “You don’t mean that—”

“I  _do_.” Hermann’s glaring at him, now, but Newt gets the distinct sense that he’s not angry  _at_ Newt, exactly. “Then, softer, he says, “I’m not capable of lying to you anymore, Newton. Never to you.”

When he breathes, the breath whistles through his teeth, and he closes his eyes, slumping. In that instant, he looks—vulnerable. The façade of controlled calmness and surety he always projects drops away, and he looks—

 _Tired._ Young, far too young.  _This is the price we pay_ , Newt thinks grimly. He should say something comforting, but instead, he says, “You should get up and take some painkillers. Your leg’s going to hurt from having kept it in that position.”

“I should,” Hermann agrees, but he doesn’t move. “And you should eat something and put on a shirt that isn’t soaked with sweat. And probably sleep—I can see the shadows under your eyes.”

Newt bites his cheek, almost hard enough to draw blood, but.

Not quite.

“I’ll do that if you let me get you a cup of water and some ibuprofen,” he bargains. When Hermann looks about to protest, he weakly holds up a hand. “No arguing,” he says.

“What is this, a dictatorship?”

“Yes. Now stay there while I go get you pain meds.”

 _Food_ winds up being a grilled cheese sandwich. Hermann manages to not comment on that, but if he actually  _did_ have laser vision, the sandwich would be dust.

The tricky bit, it turns out, is the shirt.

Namely, that he can’t find one that he likes.

“It’s a  _shirt_ ,” Hermann says, exasperated, “no one’s going to see you—you’re wearing it to _bed._ Please, just choose one before I give in to the urge to strangle you.”

“ _Harsh_ ,”Newt says, and pushes aside another hanger. “Oh! There we go.”

The shirt is faded—black, originally, it now looks grey in some spots, the lettering and image printed on it peeling, a few letters gone entirely so that it says  _la k Vel e  Rab._ Hermann raises a brow. “You made  _t-shirts?_ ” he asks bluntly.

Newt doesn’t reply but to scowl at him before pulling off the shirt he’s wearing and putting the clean one on. Sleep, despite his earlier resistance, suddenly seems like a very inviting concept. But—

“You need  _sleep_ too,” Newt says. “Come on—the bed is big enough for two.”

Hermann sighs. “Alright,” he says, “If you kick me though…”

The thing that tugs at his lips can’t quite be called a smile, not yet; too jagged and painful, but.

Almost.

* * *

It’s easier to fall asleep with Hermann there—frighteningly more so. Newt finds his own breathing synchronising with Hermann’s no matter what he does to try and stop it, inhaling softer and shallower as the minutes drag by.

Finally, he drifts off, though—the combined factors of  _warmth_ and  _familiar presence_ work in tandem, dragging him under.

Floats through darkness—just darkness, ever-expanding, never-ending, and—

Breathes a sigh of relief when the expected  _whitebluedeathdistructionkillthemall_ stays at bay.

* * *

“I think I’m still in love with you,” Newt says plainly the next morning, voice scratchy from sleep, Hermann’s hand thrown over his waist. There’s no sunlight filtering through the blinds—there are, for that matter, no blinds. The black-out curtains, however, are doing their job admirably well.

“Mmm,” Hermann murmurs, unfazed, and pulls Newt closer so that he can nuzzle the his neck.

Newt scowls. “Really?” he demands, “I’ve been keeping that locked up for years with anxiety and—and—fucking  _aliens_ , Herms, and now I confess my possibly-undying love for you and all you can do is  _hum?_ What am I, chopped liver?”

“Hm,” says Hermann, muffled. “Great.”

“Wait,” Newt stares at the ceiling, trying to gather his thoughts. “Are you still half-asleep and didn’t hear anything I just said, or did you already  _know_ and just never  _said_ anything?”

“That’s nice,” Hermann murmurs, and yep, he didn’t hear a word. Newt’s scowl grows.

“Fine,” he huffs, “you brought me to this.” And with that, he rolls off the bed, dragging the blanket with him, and falls to the ground with a  _thump_.

That jolts Hermann awake. “Newton!” he exclaims, peering over the side of the bed at Newt, eyes wide. Newt bares his teeth. “I can’t believe you,” Hermann sighs, “give me back the blanket, you ridiculous man.”

“Not until you give me a movie-worthy response,” Newt counters.

“To what?” Hermann asks, cautiously, as if Newt has just suggested that they buy a tarantula. “And arguably, nothing I can say is going to be  _movie-worthy,_ Newton, I’m not—”

“I think I’m still in love with you,” Newt says, “I don’t think I ever stopped.”

“Oh,” Hermann says. Blinks. “I…didn’t know.” There’s another pause, and then he says, “Well. This would be significantly more awkward if it wasn’t mutual. Now please, Newton, for the love of all things holy, please give me the blanket. I’m getting cold.”

Newt heaves a dramatic sigh. It feels almost normal. Nice, really, when he stops to think about it, that some of his old mannerisms are returning. “Alright,” he says, “but only because you’re cute.”

“And you’re incorrigible,” Hermann shoots back, shifting to make room for Newt, and then blinks dazedly when Newt presses a chaste kiss to his forehead before throwing the blanket over the both of them and curling against him. “But,” he says, at length, quietly, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * *

After that, the tenuous— _thing_ they have solidifies.

They don’t put a name to it—Newt, because he’s not sure what to even  _call_ this thing, and Hermann because—

Well. Newt suspects he’s a little bit scared. But that’s okay. Because Newt is scared, too—fucking terrified, really. But hey. They’ll figure it out.

“We’re the best partners ever,” Newt says, scuffs the toe of his boots on the grass, the breeze pleasantly chilly, and when he grins, it feels just a bit more real.

Hermann squeezes his hand. “Yes,” he says, “we are.”


End file.
